Saturday, January 23, 2016

Too Loud Lily by Sofie Laguna

Too Loud Lily is a story about Lily the Hippo who is just too loud and constantly gets into trouble for it, until one day a new teacher at school gets Lily into the school play and Lily can be herself.

We got given this book for Christmas and I thought on our first read through that this book was written for my Little Miss who likes to be loud and adventurous. My son also enjoys the book and we have no read this many times in our house.

Too Loud Lily really is a delightful read with a good message about staying true to yourself and finding your niche. Lily struggles in every day life being constantly told she is too loud. When she decides to join the school play she is able to be loud and she brings the house down with her performance, finally finding a place she can be herself.

The illustrations showed Lily's sadness at the start of the book when she gets in trouble for reading to loud, laughing too loud, watching TV too loud, and waking the baby. Then when her new flamboyant teacher arrives you see Lily's transformation as the teacher asks her to be louder. This is music to Lily's ears as she gets to finally unleash her suppressed loudness.

The reader see the progression of Lily from a young girl being forced into a box against her nature to a young girl who realises her abilities are not a negative but a positive in the right settings.

A final note that Kerry Argent has done a wonderful job illustrating this book.

This is a lovely little book perfect for helping children to learn to accept themselves for who they are.

Other stuff:
This book has been nominated for awards such as:

Children’s Book Council of Australia Award for Book of the Year for Early Readers
Honour Book 2003

Oppenheim Best Book Award USA for 2005

Shortlisted for the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards 2003

Shortlisted for the Children’s Choice Picture Book of the Year 2003

Here is a video of the book Too Loud Lily being read so you can get an idea of the book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeXpSqsITMs